Blogs and Bots
As part of my journey to develop a blog for my coaching website, I read the book Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley. It was published in 2014, so I was prepared for some outdated information, given that the book came out just as smartphones were becoming ubiquitous. Some of the book’s content was dated, but much of the guidance was timeless. I was even surprised to recognize some of the websites and tools the author recommended. A few of them I’ve only recently discovered, so I thought they were relatively new, but it turns out they’ve been around for ten years already. [Side note: this is proof of how long it takes to grow a product or business. I take comfort in that.] Then I came across her recommended word count for blogs: 1,500 to 2,000. “Those numbers must be outdated,” I thought, “in an era of TikTok attention spans?!” I'm a big reader and even I get bored or impatient with articles longer than that.
So, I turned to Google to find more recent advice.
The couple of authoritative sounding websites near the top of the search page confirmed and expanded upon Ann Handley’s advice. And by “expanded,” I mean it literally: they increased the number to 2,000-2,500 at minimum, better is 3,500-4,000 because that conveys expertise. According to the website, that is.
Why so many words for a blog or online article? I was flabbergasted. Turns out it's about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and algorithms that trawl internet content, (plus some reasons I don't care about or are irrelevant here). The more words, the likelier a searched-for-phrase turns up in my text, the more likely someone will find my page. Theoretically.
I suspect* those bots, scouring and indexing web content, have been programmed to attribute expertise and authority to longer passages. The rationale, probably originating from the early days of the internet, is that long passages indicate authority: an author who knows what they're talking about. Quantity equalled quality. Once upon a time, when it took a lot of work to create a website, only those who were subject-matter experts were creating pages on their given topics. Authoritative sites were valuable to people. As new tools, search engines needed to gain trust from users, but no one knew how to automate programs to recognize authority (in the earlier era, at least), so large word counts acted as the proxy for quality. Today, that proxy is still applied. The difference is that today, it’s cheap and easy to create a website and toss in mediocre content. Quantity no longer equals quality, but no one has adapted the algorithms. Quality is irrelevant in an era all about hits and website traffic that generates eyeballs for advertising.
* “suspect” because I’m hardly a tech guru and have zero expertise on this subject. You’ve been warned.
The websites mentioned nothing about providing value to the reader. Everybody Rights did have a section on that, but it’s a book, not a website with ads.
Long articles and high word counts are about the merchant, not the consumer. That concept was reinforced as I scrolled past more ads to read further: the word count went up as the article about word count went on, but it failed to offer any new information. Instead, it embodied the concept of how to increase word count: say what you want to say, then say it again and again and again. I finally understand why there's so much immaterial dribble on cooking blogs ahead of the essential recipe content: SEO and algorithms. Nothing to do with you, dear Reader, and everything to do with bots and creating more space to host more ads. The blogs are long because the bots tell them to be, because the bots were taught to look for it, and now that's all we get. It’s all very “The medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan).
Apologies to the algorithms and ads: this is not that kind of website. I will “Write Tight” as Mrs. Rooks, my high school Writer's Craft teacher always advocated. Because of her teaching, I value quality writing, and I value you. I don't care to waste your time. If you're reading this, it's because you genuinely seek self-improvement and/or learn from my insights, not because some SEO bot brought you here in conformity with its outdated, capitalist, self-fulfilling algorithm. I aim to provide useful information and insights written to the best of my ability to provide value to you. Not to attract bots.
Quality over quantity, I promise.
Stop reading here. The text below is the same as above to optimize the search engine's opportunity to find my site and convince the algorithms that I’m an expert so that they can recommend my blog to people searching for terms about life coaching, habits formation, the winner of last night's game, Taylor’s latest tour, and whatever else is trending in a space I try to spend as little time as possible and want to reap only what’s valuable.
You're welcome.
“The medium is the message”
As part of my journey to develop a blog for my coaching website, I read the book Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley. It was published in 2014, so I was prepared for some outdated information, given that the book came out just as smartphones were becoming ubiquitous. Some of the book’s content was dated, but much of the guidance was timeless. I was even surprised to recognize some of the websites and tools the author recommended. A few of them I’ve only recently discovered, so I thought they were relatively new, but it turns out they’ve been around for ten years already. [Side note: this is proof of how long it takes to grow a product or business. I take comfort in that.] Then I came across her recommended word count for blogs: 1,500 to 2,000. “Those numbers must be outdated,” I thought, “in an era of TikTok attention spans?!” I'm a big reader and even I get bored or impatient with articles longer than that.
So, I turned to Google to find more recent advice.
The couple of authoritative sounding websites near the top of the search page confirmed and expanded upon Ann Handley’s advice. And by “expanded,” I mean it literally: they increased the number to 2,000-2,500 at minimum, better is 3,500-4,000 because that conveys expertise. According to the website, that is.
Why so many words for a blog or online article? I was flabbergasted. Turns out it's about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and algorithms that trawl internet content, (plus some reasons I don't care about or are irrelevant here). The more words, the likelier a searched-for-phrase turns up in my text, the more likely someone will find my page. Theoretically.
I suspect* those bots, scouring and indexing web content, have been programmed to attribute expertise and authority to longer passages. The rationale, probably originating from the early days of the internet, is that long passages indicate authority: an author who knows what they're talking about. Quantity equalled quality. Once upon a time, when it took a lot of work to create a website, only those who were subject-matter experts were creating pages on their given topics. Authoritative sites were valuable to people. As new tools, search engines needed to gain trust from users, but no one knew how to automate programs to recognize authority (in the earlier era, at least), so large word counts acted as the proxy for quality. Today, that proxy is still applied. The difference is that today, it’s cheap and easy to create a website and toss in mediocre content. Quantity no longer equals quality, but no one has adapted the algorithms. Quality is irrelevant in an era all about hits and website traffic that generates eyeballs for advertising.
* “suspect” because I’m hardly a tech guru and have zero expertise on this subject. You’ve been warned.
The websites mentioned nothing about providing value to the reader. Everybody Rights did have a section on that, but it’s a book, not a website with ads.
Long articles and high word counts are about the merchant, not the consumer. That concept was reinforced as I scrolled past more ads to read further: the word count went up as the article about word count went on, but it failed to offer any new information. Instead, it embodied the concept of how to increase word count: say what you want to say, then say it again and again and again. I finally understand why there's so much immaterial dribble on cooking blogs ahead of the essential recipe content: SEO and algorithms. Nothing to do with you, dear Reader, and everything to do with bots and creating more space to host more ads. The blogs are long because the bots tell them to be, because the bots were taught to look for it, and now that's all we get. It’s all very “The medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan).
Apologies to the algorithms and ads: this is not that kind of website. I will “Write Tight” as Mrs. Rooks, my high school Writer's Craft teacher always advocated. Because of her teaching, I value quality writing, and I value you. I don't care to waste your time. If you're reading this, it's because you genuinely seek self-improvement and/or learn from my insights, not because some SEO bot brought you here in conformity with its outdated, capitalist, self-fulfilling algorithm. I aim to provide useful information and insights written to the best of my ability to provide value to you. Not to attract bots.
Quality over quantity, I promise.
Stop reading here. The text below is the same as above to optimize the search engine's opportunity to find my site and convince the algorithms that I’m an expert so that they can recommend my blog to people searching for terms about life coaching, habits formation, the winner of last night's game, Taylor’s latest tour, and whatever else is trending in a space I try to spend as little time as possible and want to reap only what’s valuable.
You're welcome.As part of my journey to develop a blog for my coaching website, I read the book Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley. It was published in 2014, so I was prepared for some outdated information, given that the book came out just as smartphones were becoming ubiquitous. Some of the book’s content was dated, but much of the guidance was timeless. I was even surprised to recognize some of the websites and tools the author recommended. A few of them I’ve only recently discovered, so I thought they were relatively new, but it turns out they’ve been around for ten years already. [Side note: this is proof of how long it takes to grow a product or business. I take comfort in that.] Then I came across her recommended word count for blogs: 1,500 to 2,000. “Those numbers must be outdated,” I thought, “in an era of TikTok attention spans?!” I'm a big reader and even I get bored or impatient with articles longer than that.
So, I turned to Google to find more recent advice.
The couple of authoritative sounding websites near the top of the search page confirmed and expanded upon Ann Handley’s advice. And by “expanded,” I mean it literally: they increased the number to 2,000-2,500 at minimum, better is 3,500-4,000 because that conveys expertise. According to the website, that is.
Why so many words for a blog or online article? I was flabbergasted. Turns out it's about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and algorithms that trawl internet content, (plus some reasons I don't care about or are irrelevant here). The more words, the likelier a searched-for-phrase turns up in my text, the more likely someone will find my page. Theoretically.
I suspect* those bots, scouring and indexing web content, have been programmed to attribute expertise and authority to longer passages. The rationale, probably originating from the early days of the internet, is that long passages indicate authority: an author who knows what they're talking about. Quantity equalled quality. Once upon a time, when it took a lot of work to create a website, only those who were subject-matter experts were creating pages on their given topics. Authoritative sites were valuable to people. As new tools, search engines needed to gain trust from users, but no one knew how to automate programs to recognize authority (in the earlier era, at least), so large word counts acted as the proxy for quality. Today, that proxy is still applied. The difference is that today, it’s cheap and easy to create a website and toss in mediocre content. Quantity no longer equals quality, but no one has adapted the algorithms. Quality is irrelevant in an era all about hits and website traffic that generates eyeballs for advertising.
* “suspect” because I’m hardly a tech guru and have zero expertise on this subject. You’ve been warned.
The websites mentioned nothing about providing value to the reader. Everybody Rights did have a section on that, but it’s a book, not a website with ads.
Long articles and high word counts are about the merchant, not the consumer. That concept was reinforced as I scrolled past more ads to read further: the word count went up as the article about word count went on, but it failed to offer any new information. Instead, it embodied the concept of how to increase word count: say what you want to say, then say it again and again and again. I finally understand why there's so much immaterial dribble on cooking blogs ahead of the essential recipe content: SEO and algorithms. Nothing to do with you, dear Reader, and everything to do with bots and creating more space to host more ads. The blogs are long because the bots tell them to be, because the bots were taught to look for it, and now that's all we get. It’s all very “The medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan).
Apologies to the algorithms and ads: this is not that kind of website. I will “Write Tight” as Mrs. Rooks, my high school Writer's Craft teacher always advocated. Because of her teaching, I value quality writing, and I value you. I don't care to waste your time. If you're reading this, it's because you genuinely seek self-improvement and/or learn from my insights, not because some SEO bot brought you here in conformity with its outdated, capitalist, self-fulfilling algorithm. I aim to provide useful information and insights written to the best of my ability to provide value to you. Not to attract bots.
Quality over quantity, I promise.
Stop reading here. The text below is the same as above to optimize the search engine's opportunity to find my site and convince the algorithms that I’m an expert so that they can recommend my blog to people searching for terms about life coaching, habits formation, the winner of last night's game, Taylor’s latest tour, and whatever else is trending in a space I try to spend as little time as possible and want to reap only what’s valuable.
You're welcome.
As part of my journey to develop a blog for my coaching website, I read the book Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley. It was published in 2014, so I was prepared for some outdated information, given that the book came out just as smartphones were becoming ubiquitous. Some of the book’s content was dated, but much of the guidance was timeless. I was even surprised to recognize some of the websites and tools the author recommended. A few of them I’ve only recently discovered, so I thought they were relatively new, but it turns out they’ve been around for ten years already. [Side note: this is proof of how long it takes to grow a product or business. I take comfort in that.] Then I came across her recommended word count for blogs: 1,500 to 2,000. “Those numbers must be outdated,” I thought, “in an era of TikTok attention spans?!” I'm a big reader and even I get bored or impatient with articles longer than that.
So, I turned to Google to find more recent advice.
The couple of authoritative sounding websites near the top of the search page confirmed and expanded upon Ann Handley’s advice. And by “expanded,” I mean it literally: they increased the number to 2,000-2,500 at minimum, better is 3,500-4,000 because that conveys expertise. According to the website, that is.
Why so many words for a blog or online article? I was flabbergasted. Turns out it's about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and algorithms that trawl internet content, (plus some reasons I don't care about or are irrelevant here). The more words, the likelier a searched-for-phrase turns up in my text, the more likely someone will find my page. Theoretically.
I suspect* those bots, scouring and indexing web content, have been programmed to attribute expertise and authority to longer passages. The rationale, probably originating from the early days of the internet, is that long passages indicate authority: an author who knows what they're talking about. Quantity equalled quality. Once upon a time, when it took a lot of work to create a website, only those who were subject-matter experts were creating pages on their given topics. Authoritative sites were valuable to people. As new tools, search engines needed to gain trust from users, but no one knew how to automate programs to recognize authority (in the earlier era, at least), so large word counts acted as the proxy for quality. Today, that proxy is still applied. The difference is that today, it’s cheap and easy to create a website and toss in mediocre content. Quantity no longer equals quality, but no one has adapted the algorithms. Quality is irrelevant in an era all about hits and website traffic that generates eyeballs for advertising.
* “suspect” because I’m hardly a tech guru and have zero expertise on this subject. You’ve been warned.
The websites mentioned nothing about providing value to the reader. Everybody Rights did have a section on that, but it’s a book, not a website with ads.
Long articles and high word counts are about the merchant, not the consumer. That concept was reinforced as I scrolled past more ads to read further: the word count went up as the article about word count went on, but it failed to offer any new information. Instead, it embodied the concept of how to increase word count: say what you want to say, then say it again and again and again. I finally understand why there's so much immaterial dribble on cooking blogs ahead of the essential recipe content: SEO and algorithms. Nothing to do with you, dear Reader, and everything to do with bots and creating more space to host more ads. The blogs are long because the bots tell them to be, because the bots were taught to look for it, and now that's all we get. It’s all very “The medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan).
Apologies to the algorithms and ads: this is not that kind of website. I will “Write Tight” as Mrs. Rooks, my high school Writer's Craft teacher always advocated. Because of her teaching, I value quality writing, and I value you. I don't care to waste your time. If you're reading this, it's because you genuinely seek self-improvement and/or learn from my insights, not because some SEO bot brought you here in conformity with its outdated, capitalist, self-fulfilling algorithm. I aim to provide useful information and insights written to the best of my ability to provide value to you. Not to attract bots.
Quality over quantity, I promise.
Stop reading here. The text below is the same as above to optimize the search engine's opportunity to find my site and convince the algorithms that I’m an expert so that they can recommend my blog to people searching for terms about life coaching, habits formation, the winner of last night's game, Taylor’s latest tour, and whatever else is trending in a space I try to spend as little time as possible and want to reap only what’s valuable.
You're welcome.